You may have heard that I have been working on a stripped-down version of ORX, which I am very shortly planning on releasing into the commons. However, I haven't decided yet whether to release it under a commercial or non-commercial license and I am curious what the experiences of other designers who have gone either route have been? If you released it under a commercial license, looking back, do you feel it was it a good decision (would you do it again, etc)? If you released it under a non-commercial license, what was the effect?

Still the same objective, but not exactly the same mean to obtain it. Thinking about this : you want to talk about the nd part or the nc part ?

Hi Sebastien,

It's mainly the NC part that interests me (I'm allowing derivative works for ORX) as I'm curious about what other indie authors have seen from the release of a NC work versus a work they allow to be used commercially.

I'm also curious about your statement regarding CC being a trademark. Could you expand on what you mean by that?

I've published Solar System and World of Near under the commercial CC license, but the choice was mostly made by Clinton, whom I'm emulating on this point. I can't speak for him, but my experience as his sidekick on the TSoY project has given me the impression that while Clinton started out with the non-commercial license, he switched to the commercial one for the simple reason that the distinction wasn't practically worthwhile; are you going to refuse it if somebody wants to do something with that material, really?

The Finnish edition of TSoY is available under the NC license, I think, as it's modeled on when Clinton was using a NC license. This has been rather irrelevant, it's not like there's any basis in Finland for somebody else to use the material in a substantially commercial manner. If there were, I'd definitely allow them to.

While I'm aping Clinton on this whole CC business (I wouldn't have used an open license in a completely independent project, most likely), I have to say that if I'm using a CC license, I might as well make it a commercial one, considering my leanings. The benefit of using an open license in the first place concerns publicity and co-operators and less hassle in cooperation. All of these three things are better served by a commercial license, which removes the artificial distinction and any friction related to that. If I want other people to use my work, then I shouldn't put up barriers for them - if somebody takes the work and runs with it and becomes so wildly successful that the commercial license starts seeming overly generous, then the project is already so insanely successful that my own association with it amply repays me in terms of satisfaction. Simply put, it's theoretically possible that somebody else might benefit from the project "more" than I do, but if I benefit from it more than I would without an open license, then I'm doing well, too.

I should also add that I would not myself start an ambitious project with CC-licensed material if I had to rely on a non-commercial license from the original author. Game design is too much like work and business for me, I couldn't enjoy it if I knew that I couldn't go all the way with the project if inspiration took me. When we made the Finnish edition of TSoY, for example, we had to make a separate deal with Clinton to get a commercial permission; not because we made any great profit, but just because that was a theoretical possibility. So at least I am the sort of potential audience for whom a commercial license is an important detail in whether I'm interested in working with some material or not.

Thanks for the feedback, Eero! TSoY and your work with it was one of the examples banging around in my head when I asked the question, so I appreciate the details. I honestly wouldn't have looked at it that from that perspective.

How about you, what's your own viewpoint? I mean, why are you looking at a CC license in the first place? Seems to me that your goals in using the license would be primo material for figuring out whether a commercial or non-commercial license is better for you. It's easy for me to say that the whole distinction is artificial and stupid, but somebody else well might have a different situation where they rely on it.

This is, for me, a complex matter. To be honest, a whole part of my own project is how to use the CC, in conjunction with other "techniques" (you can see license here). And, at this point, I can't talk much about it ...Okay, let's take a look at the issues.

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I'm also curious about your statement regarding CC being a trademark. Could you expand on what you mean by that?

I was exaggerating. CC is first and foremost a license (license which is released under itself). And note that CC is not the only way to do what it does : go see a lawyer and he'll write you down an equivalent license. But, in this context, CC has the main advantage of being well established, and more importantly, to be readable by humans (a lot of logos out there for CC).So, in some sense, releasing some material under CC has the main advantage of putting the CC logo (read "trademark" here) next to your name, own brand ... whatever. Knowing that CC has a good name, it might turned out be a good commercial/marketing move.

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I've published Solar System and World of Near under the commercial CC license, but the choice was mostly made by Clinton, whom I'm emulating on this point. I can't speak for him, but my experience as his sidekick on the TSoY project has given me the impression that while Clinton started out with the non-commercial license, he switched to the commercial one for the simple reason that the distinction wasn't practically worthwhile; are you going to refuse it if somebody wants to do something with that material, really?

They are other ways an author who might wants to use your material in commercial way to obtain the authorization from you. And there are clever ways than email.That said, Eero, personally, and I understand your point of view, I wouldn't released material under commercial use. That is, for current working project. I think for projects that are just "abandoned" (sorry for the harsh word), commercial use might be the best way to go.

And please, note that the SA is a little tricky. Derivatives work is kind of complicated.

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I should also add that I would not myself start an ambitious project with CC-licensed material if I had to rely on a non-commercial license from the original author. Game design is too much like work and business for me, I couldn't enjoy it if I knew that I couldn't go all the way with the project if inspiration took me.

Eero, that is a tricky part !!! With CC-licensed material, you can do some tricky stuff, by separating the content and identifying which part is "contaminated" by the license. So, you could use some NC material as part of your final work.For instance, for Avalanche, I could use some NC-licensed material, regarding "a system" for instance, modify it, and then release it in some form that would respect the original license (thru a wiki, a single pdf). But, this "part" wouldn't contaminate either the text nor the illustrations of Avalanche. Not even other systems I could have came up with.And that is a very fun part of self publishing those days !!! Well, of course, you would need a project that work well for that ...

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How about you, what's your own viewpoint?

Hey Grey, was is it ? If you just want to release ORX in the open, you might go with commercial use ... unless you want to stay "in the true spirit" of open source (à la unix) and go with BY-SA-NC. Be a hardcore opensourcer !!

How about you, what's your own viewpoint? I mean, why are you looking at a CC license in the first place?

I'm waffling on the commercial license because my concern is that the lite version will prove more digestible/usable than the full version, and might thus prove to be a more commercially viable property with outside development, and given I put a lot of time and effort into it, I'd hate to see someone else just "yoink!" the lite version and find success with it that I don't benefit from.

On the other hand, a non-commercial license may easily prove unattractive to anyone actually looking to develop the lite version further, and the fact is there may be no value in the property as it stands, so why not release it and let other developers do as they wish with it/to it and see if anything valuable DOES develop? I'm also attracted to the NC license on personal ethical grounds.

I think the truth is I'm caught between the needs of our society (to be a capitalist and cling tightly to anything that might ever be profitable) and the needs of our culture (for greater freedom), and I'm actually rather disturbed, intellectually and morally, that I am not just choosing the latter.

Would you not benefit if somebody takes the game and republishes it successfully? Seems to me like that'd be a point of pride if nothing else. Financially I can't really imagine it mattering either way, unless the new publisher were willing to commit mucho dinero on marketing to make the game a bigger hit than indies usually are; if they do, seems to me like you're netting plenty of publicity and nerd-fame without risking your own resources on it. Win-win in my books, although I imagine that one could be jealous about the lean profits of such an enterprise.

I don't see much moral dimension in this choice myself - if you don't want people to republish the work, then don't use a license that allows it. Seems to me that the major reasons for using an open license in the first place relate to a wish to garner further attention to the product and a wish to garner cooperation from other people in developing and marketing the property. The latter motivation is, it seems to me, necessarily accompanied by a conviction that you'll be able to keep up with your "allies" to whatever extent you want to. In other words: even if somebody should decide to republish the game to great acclaim, do you feel that you couldn't yourself benefit from this in whatever manner you're thinking of benefiting of the CC license in the first place?

A thought experiment: if you were Clinton R. Nixon, would you feel pissed? I took his game and completely revised the text, then started selling it under the same brand name. I'm not paying Clinton for the privilege. Do you think that Clinton's getting an unfair treatment, or a treatment you wouldn't wish on yourself?

I think the truth is I'm caught between the needs of our society (to be a capitalist and cling tightly to anything that might ever be profitable) and the needs of our culture (for greater freedom), and I'm actually rather disturbed, intellectually and morally, that I am not just choosing the latter.

Unlike Eero, I believe there is truly a moral dilemma here ; but unlike Grey, I do see it the other way around ...Using a NC license is truly going against the capitalism trend and is really about freedom (commercial license is not giving freedom).

You have to keep in mind where the CC (and open source community) comes from : as a way to protect the work of a community and avoid the scavenging from a big company that would come there for the money. Purist "open sourcer" sees the NC as a true form of freedom.

A little note : I've been working for two and a half years in an "open source" environment (read here given the choice between two products, one open source and one commercial, of equal quality, go for the open source). And those guys aren't joking : the NC is important. And they make a point to give back to the community for free.

Now, yeap, I know, you can see it the other way around ...

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I'm waffling on the commercial license because my concern is that the lite version will prove more digestible/usable than the full version, and might thus prove to be a more commercially viable property with outside development, and given I put a lot of time and effort into it, I'd hate to see someone else just "yoink!" the lite version and find success with it that I don't benefit from.

A question, as I'm not familiar with ORX : was is there to salvage from ORX light ? And are you sure this can be protected by IP alone ? Because, if it's in the field of "ideas", those can't be protected. I'm just asking, because, maybe, just maybe, there is no problem after all ...

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A thought experiment: if you were Clinton R. Nixon, would you feel pissed? I took his game and completely revised the text, then started selling it under the same brand name. I'm not paying Clinton for the privilege. Do you think that Clinton's getting an unfair treatment, or a treatment you wouldn't wish on yourself?

In the given situation, I wouldn't be pissed. But ... in a similar situation (still exploiting the product), I could be ; and a lot.And by the way, yes, you can use the brand because it hasn't be trademarked ; so, anyway, it's legal for you, Clinton can't do anything. If "solar system" was really a brand (trademark), the situation would be quite different.

That said, Eero, to explicit the "current project" : for Avalanche I intend to release some parts into CC (and this for two reasons, one moral, to give back, the other, commercial, because CC is a good brand). My orginal idea was to use a commercial BY-SA license. I went to see a lawyer : this could be catastrophic and I could see all this content being salvage by "the big ones". The roadmap of the project and when to release some parts in CC is very important. You don't want to mess with that.

Those are all good points, Eero, and things I guess I'm trying to convince myself of in terms of non-financial benefit. Though I'm sorry you don't see the ethcial dimension in it because that's a very big part of it for me.

Do you think that Clinton's getting an unfair treatment, or a treatment you wouldn't wish on yourself?

I realize why you're asking, but I think that would be up to Clinton to answer.

Sebastien, that's an interesting perspective, and I can see it that way. Also, you like Eero are right about if my concern with the commercial license possibly being over nothing. I'm really leaning towards BY-SA.

Thanks for all your feedback, guys. I decided to just take the plunge and went with a CC 3.0 BY-SA license.

Sebastien, I find a lot to agree with in your statement about the NC license being the most ethical choice, because it forces it to be free, but I decided not to go that route because we're still stuck in a capitalist society. So this is a compromise.

My suggestion (completely personal opinion) would be that if your not going to allow commercial use there is really no point in going CC. When it comes to books and rpgs non commercial adaptations are just fan material, which is often just assumed to be kosher. Another thing to consider is if you don't want people to make commercial use but offer a creative commons on a lite version some people may possibly in confusion think the entire game is CC.

If you do go the commercial route one thing I might suggest, is putting in a clause requiring commercials distributions must have your CC work representing no more than 25% of the total product content. This makes sure that both you and consumers can be confident a third party product is actually adding something to the line.

My brother saw some pictures on flickr, was going to stick them in a project, saw the "all rights reserved" and emailed the guy instead. Exactly the same can be done with a non-commercial; you can just re-license it in a commercial fashion if someone else wants to make money off it, potential with some kind of revenue share thing (however you go about doing that).